


Trinity

by AngelQueen



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: 1806, 1814, 1848, Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Post-Canon, burial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24291430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelQueen/pseuds/AngelQueen
Summary: Three visits to the Trinity churchyard.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, Angelica Schuyler & Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Trinity

* * *

_**1806** _

* * *

The tombstone is made of fine white marble that seems to sparkle beneath the bright Saturday afternoon sun. It is large, topped with four urns atop the columns at each corner and a tall obelisk sitting at its center. It is a fine monument, fitting, and a testament of the esteem to which its recipient was held by the good gentlemen of the Society of the Cincinnati, out of respect for their President General.

Eliza stands before the monument. It is the first time she has been to see it since its dedication. She had not attended, though both Alex and James had both been present to express their approbation and approval of the tomb’s magnificence. Her eyes rove over it, taking in the strong lines of the obelisk, the lovely curves of the urns, before dropping down to the inscription below.

_To the memory of Alexander Hamilton, the Corporation of Trinity Church erected this monument in testimony of their respect for the patriot of incorruptible integrity, the soldier of approved valor, the statesman of consummate wisdom, whose talents and virtues will be admired by grateful posterity long after this marble shall have moldered into dust. He died July 12th 1804. Aged 47._

Patriot. Soldier. Statesman. All these things her Hamilton had been, and more besides. The memory of him in his buff and blue is still sharp in her mind, so clear he could be standing right in front of her again, eyes glittering with a knowing charm. The sound of his stylus scratching on paper as he built a government from nothing still echoes in her ears most nights. 

He had fought to build this country, nearly destroyed his own health in the pursuit of building a nation that the people could be proud of. Nearly destroyed his own _family_ , but no, Eliza isn’t going to think of those things, not today. 

This country, she maintains, owes her Hamilton so much. A marker for his grave that is worthy of him is just the start, and she is grateful to the Society for recognizing that. It is a beginning, Eliza knows, the beginning of a battle that will last a long, long time, perhaps forever – the battle to ensure history, posterity gives him his due. She will lead the charge in this, no matter how many cluck and shake their heads at her stepping out of a woman’s place. 

For her Hamilton, she will settle for nothing less than the best. 

She reaches out to the front of the tomb, brushes her gloved fingers across the engraved words. “I think it very fine, my darling,” Eliza murmurs softly. “Very fine indeed.”

She takes her leave after that, her steps taking her back in the direction of home. Angelica is there waiting, having promised to look after the household while Eliza stepped out to take some much-needed exercise and solitude. But it is time to return home now.

There is work to do.

* * *

_**1814** _

* * *

There is no marker for Eliza to stare at, just a fresh mound of recently upturned earth. There is nothing to distinguish this spot in the churchyard, nothing to indicate the vibrant and passionate life led by the ground’s new occupant. 

“Oh, Angelica,” she murmurs, bowing her head. 

Part of her wants to be angry at her brother-in-law. John Church had not done justice to his life in death. He had not even arranged her burial. No, Angelica’s interment here in the churchyard happened only through the grace and kindness of their Livingston kin. 

She wants to be angry at her sister’s husband, but she has seen the man’s slumped shoulders, his red-rimmed eyes, his broken expression. Eliza has seen that, and wonders if he resembles her as she was ten years ago. He is leaving soon, planning to return to London despite the exhortations of his children to stay, all of them promising him a home with them if he will but seize upon their offers.

Eliza alone refused to plead for him to stay. She understands his grief, perhaps better than anyone else in their large, sprawling clan. They each must deal with their sorrows in their own way. Eliza had done so by throwing herself into the myriad of problems that her Hamilton’s death had left, into the raising of her now-fatherless children. If the only relief Church can find from his heartache is to run, then she will not be the one to chastise him. 

_Still,_ a voice within her speaks up sardonically, _could he at least have ordered a marker for his wife’s grave?_ It is a tone of voice that Eliza knows well, one she has never forgotten, despite having not heard it with her own ears in ten long, hard years.

 _Witty as ever,_ she thinks. Her eyes fall on the grave once more, and Eliza blinks away a new wave of tears. Her poor, poor sister. Her collapse in health had been sudden and unexpected, so much so that there had not been time for all of her children to return home and say farewell. Eliza had been there, of course, had held on tightly to one of Angelica’s hands just as Church had held onto the other. She had watched her sister gamely try to cling to life, had even smiled at the faint joke Angelica had made, insisting that she could not die just yet because she had not yet revealed all of Jefferson’s secrets.

But she died nonetheless.

Eliza looks up and glances to her right. The building blocks her view of the other side of the churchyard, and so she cannot catch sight of the familiar tombstone that shines and rises above all the others. Still, she can’t help but think that it will not matter.

Angelica and Hamilton had never allowed distance to keep them from seeking one another out. More than once over the years they had gravitated to one another from different corners of a crowded assembly, drawn together to talk over their shared passion for politics, for government. 

Surely now they will not let something they would deem as paltry as death stop them from finding one another again. Eliza can only guess what they will talk about now, after so long a parting.

She offers the loose earth at her feet a sad, tired smile. “Give him my love, dearest,” she whispers.

* * *

_**1848** _

* * *

The crisp, packed snow crunches beneath her shoes as Eliza slowly climbs out of the carriage and steps onto the sidewalk. She squeezes her eldest surviving son’s hand in thanks for his aid before letting him go to aid his wife and sister, two other Elizas, from the carriage as well. 

Her daughter-in-law’s gaze goes immediately to the churchyard. “Oh,” Eliza, called Lizzy, says, “It’s beautiful.”

Her daughter, whom Eliza cannot help but think of as Little Betsey even now when her dear girl is a grown woman and widow just as she is, agrees. “It’s always been a lovely, peaceful place this time of year, even if it is bitterly cold,” Betsey says as she rubs her arms against the chill. She turns to face her. “Would you like us to come in with you, Mama?”

Eliza gazes at them. Even as they all stand close to one another, their expressions are more blurry than distinct, a sad indication of her fading eyesight. Still, she does not need clear sight to see their concern. They all know better than to try and coddle her like some doddering invalid, and have become quite good at managing a good middle ground, of being able to be helpful without being overbearing. 

Now their time together is at an end. Though Alexander and Lizzy will be remaining in New York, where her son has his law practice, Eliza and Betsey will be departing for Washington City to make a new home together there. In all truth, Eliza is glad of it. Though she has never said so, she has never much liked their home on Prince Street, where she and Betsey have resided since they lost good Sydney Holly. It may seem churlish, but she has never liked that James Monroe once resided and even died there. Eliza fancies she can still sense the man’s odious presence in the house, even though he has been dead for decades.

She shakes her head. “No,” she replies, “I’d like to see him alone.”

Alexander peers at her closely, and she thinks he would like to ask if she is sure, but her son knows better than to do so. Instead, he merely offers her his arm. She takes it silently, and he escorts her up the steps into the churchyard, and then steps away. She walks the rest of the way alone. 

Her eyes may be failing her, but truly, that is no impediment here. She has walked this path so many times, she knows the location of every gravestone, every rut in the ground. Even the snow does not slow her down. The familiar tombstone rises above all the others here, tall and bright and proud as ever. She stops in front of it, standing in the same place she has stood countless times before. The inscribed words are beyond her to read now, but she doesn’t need to read them when she already knows them by heart. 

“We are going soon, my darling,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “Washington City awaits, and Betsey and I have a lovely little house near the President’s House. We shan’t be starved for occupation there. Mrs. Madison and Mrs. Adams and I have been making much progress in our little project, though there is still much to do before the cornerstone is laid this summer.”

She pauses, reaching out with a gloved hand to wipe the snow from the tombstone’s ledge and run her fingers along the cold stone. “And it seems I am to be source of much interest among society,” she adds, a touch of derision coloring her tone. “Everyone is so excited to have a relic of the Revolution walking among them. I have been many things in my life, but now I shall be adding spectacle for gawking onlookers to the list.” Eliza cannot help but snort at the thought.

“I shall miss our visits, though,” she continues, just as quiet as before. She closes her eyes. The ache of Hamilton’s missing presence has never faded, not in over forty years since that last breath had slid from his body, leaving her to continue on alone. She has never regretted her life and all that she has accomplished in these many years, but Eliza so would have liked to have accomplished those things with her husband at her side. Her frequent visits to visit and speak before his tombstone have never been any kind of replacement for his actual presence, his smile, his strength. 

She opens her eyes and looks at the ground beneath her feet. This little plot of earth is hers, she knows. It is here that, when her time comes, she will be laid to rest. Next to her Hamilton, and near her dear Phillip.

Eliza looks up again. She presses her lips to her damp fingers, and then lays them on the white stone. “Wait for me, Hamilton,” she tells him. “I’ll be along soon enough.”

She walks away after that, determined to make her way to the other side of the church, to say goodbye to Angelica. As she does, a faint breeze rustles through the bare branches of the nearby trees and across Eliza’s weathered cheeks. 

Somehow, it is far warmer than it should be on such a brisk, cold day.

**Author's Note:**

>  **1806:** The tombstone that we so now identify with Hamilton's grave really didn't come along until about two years after his death, brought about by the Society of the Cincinnati, of whom Hamilton had been President since the death of George Washington. I've always found the inscription that was put into the marble, about him being "the patriot of incorruptible integrity, the soldier of approved valor, the statesman of consummate wisdom", to be quite remarkable. One can almost feel this being quite the clap-back against all of the mud that was slung in his direction. For all of Hamilton's faults and weaknesses, he had done so much to build the nation up from the borderline chaos it had been in in the years after the Revolution, and it never felt like he received his just desserts for all that he had done. 
> 
> **1814:** Angelica really doesn't have a tombstone of her own, but was buried in the Livingston family vault (they being cousins of hers). I've never been able to find out why that was the case, though I would speculate that perhaps it could have been because of strained finances. When John Barker Church died a few years later, his estate was a pale shadow of its former self. Or, as Eliza surmises here, it could have just as easily been grief. Or maybe even a combination of the two.
> 
>  **1848:** Eliza and Betsey's home on Prince Street really was once owned and lived in by James Monroe, and he even died there. If the family stories are true of her unceasing antipathy toward the man, one can guess she'd not be keen to inhabit a house that he once lived in. ~~Or that could just be me projecting, but whatever.~~
> 
> The "little project" Eliza refers to, as I'm sure you-all probably know, is her efforts to raise money for the Washington Monument, which she worked on with Dolley Madison and Louisa Adams. If you're interested seeing a story featuring the laying of the cornerstone, which took place on July 4th, 1848, Mira_Jade's delightful story, [again I wrote it with a second hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8339269), gives us a wonderful glimpse as to what it could have looked like - including Eliza meeting another remarkable person of that era, a kind of 'passing the baton' moment. #FicRec
> 
> I hope you-all enjoyed my first fic in the world of _Hamilton_! :)


End file.
